BrewDog Brewery is a relatively young microbrewery, founded in 2006, in Scotland. They’ve gained some worldwide notoriety with the recent release of Tactical Nuclear Penguin, a 32% abv monster widely considered the strongest beer in the world (to date, anyway). BrewDog describes it as an “uber-imperial stout”:
“This beer began life as a 10% imperial stout 18 months ago. The beer was aged for 8 months in an Isle of Arran whisky cask and 8 months in an Islay cask making it our first double cask aged beer. After an intense 16 month, the final stages took a ground breaking approach by storing the beer at -20 degrees for three weeks to get it to 32%.
For the big chill the beer was put into containers and transported to the cold store of a local ice cream factory where it endured 21 days at penguin temperatures. Alcohol freezes at a lower temperature than water. As the beer got colder BrewDog Chief Engineer, Steven Sutherland decanted the beer periodically, only ice was left in the container, creating more intensity of flavours and a stronger concentration of alcohol for the next phase of freezing. The process was repeated until it reached 32%.”
Madness. I don’t think I know anyone who has tried it yet, but reviews are decidedly mixed.
Anyway, a handful of BrewDog offerings have made their way to Houston in the last few months, and we’ve sampled a couple.
BrewDog’s Paradox series features imperial stouts aged in different whisky casks. The Isle of Arran edition is Batch 016, weighing in at 10% abv.
It pours a solid black with no head (likely due to the abv). The nose has some smokiness and a hint of sourness (the cask, perhaps?).
The taste is very bold. There is some sweetness upfront with a hint of raisins. However, this changes very quickly into smoky alcohol. The more you drink the more the alcohol taste seems to take over. While the concept sounds interesting this is not one of my favorite imperial stouts by a long stretch.
The nerds at Beer Advocate give it a B+.
It just makes sense that BrewDog and Stone would hook up at some point, given both breweries’ obvious penchant for big and bold beers. Bashah is classified as a Black Double Belgian IPA — in other words, this thing is unique.
It pours solid black with a small caramel head. In the nose, there is some sweetness but also a faint hop presence as well as some alcohol.
The taste has a little more going on. There is a definite hop presence for such a dark beer (but understandable for a Black Double Belgian IPA). However, it is very well balanced and definitely has some malt presence as well. Upfront there was a wee bit of funk in there, but it dies off as the hops build up in the back of the palate.
This is my favorite BrewDog beer by far.
The nerds at Beer Advocate give it a B+.
Beer Nerds 